PARIS – The Maine labor commissioner met Monday afternoon with representatives of several small businesses from the Oxford Hills region to listen to their ideas and concerns about job-related issues.
Commissioner Laura Fortman and the business representatives repeatedly discussed the challenge employers have in finding qualified employees, during their meeting in the South Paris Library.
One of the aims of the Labor Department and small businesses should be to attract people presently living in the area, but not working, into the job market. Fortman cited young and disabled people as groups in the region that may be underemployed.
She also said the influx of educated retirees to the Oxford Hills region was a possible resource to be tapped by local businesses.
“Maybe they could be pulled back into the workplace,” she said, by creating a “senior-attractive workplace.”
Another issue for all of Maine businesses, Fortman said, is often a “real mismatch” between the skills that jobs require and the actual skills that workers have.
Laurie Phillips of Norway’s Progress Center, a nonprofit that provides services to mentally disabled children and adults, agreed. She said it’s hard to find properly trained professionals in her line of work in the region. Part of the problem, she said, is that “the wages we offer are limited.”
Scott Currie, owner of Christian Ridge Pottery in Paris, said he thinks younger workers need better training in the “soft skill” area of work ethics.
“Younger workers have been a problem (in that area),” he said, adding that the best workers are those 55 and older.
Currie also complained that the Oxford Hills region isn’t an “open climate” for businesses like his because “people can go elsewhere” for a similar product that is less expensive. In order to thrive as a manufacturer, he said, “You have to make something here that can’t be made overseas for one-third the price.”
Fortman asked the participants to put together a list of wishes they would most want the state to grant. Many attendees said the price of insurance was a major issue facing them. “The next crippling effect for most businesses,” said Bob Martin of Martin Country Homes, is insurance costs.
Concerning job development, Sharon Young, a human resource representative at Oxford Homes, said she would ask the state to help attract more “skilled employees who want to stay” in the region.
Wendy Newmeyer, owner of Maine Balsam Fir Products in West Paris, said the region has to “continue to capture an older workforce.” She said she wished there were “more job opportunities at the part-time level for older people.”
Deborah Cook, the executive director of the Maine Small Business Alliance, said that Monday’s round table was the fourth of 10 forums planned across the state. The state, working with the Small Business Alliance, is gathering information in a variety of locations, Cook said, so it can better discern “common themes and regional differences” and respond in the appropriate ways.
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